Though Luke Combs is one of the biggest superstars of modern country music, he’s still a songwriter at heart. After moving to Nashville in 2014, Combs found himself rising to the top of the charts with his debut single, “Hurricane,” which led to a firestorm of chart-topping hits, including “She Got the Best of Me,” “Beer Never Broke My Heart,” “When it Rains it Pours,” “Doin’ This” and several others. Combs is the writer behind many of his own hits, but his name is also attached to songs by some of his peers. Below, we look at three songs written by Combs that were recorded by other artists.
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[RELATED: The Sweet Story Behind Luke Combs’ “Forever After All”]
1. “I Hope You’re Happy Now” by Carly Pearce ft. Lee Brice
Written by Luke Combs, Carly Pearce, Randy Montana, Jonathon Singleton
There was magic in the room when Combs, Carly Pearce, Randy Montana, and Jonathan Singleton got together to write “I Hope You’re Happy Now.” “I had never written a song with another artist in my life until Luke and I wrote, but I was playing a radio show with him one day and was just like, ‘man, I feel like we’re cut from the same cloth,'” Pearce recalls to Country Now. “I just went to him and I was like, ‘I know this is weird, but would you ever write a song with me?’”
After Combs declined to be part of the duet, on account of promoting his own album, What You See is What You Get, at the time, Pearce turned to Brice as her duet partner. The two took the song to the top of the charts, as it rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and was named Musical Event of the Year at the 2020 CMA Awards, and Single of the Year and Music Event of the Year at the 2020 ACM Awards.
I hope you find what you were looking for
I hope your heart ain’t hurting anymore
And you get moving on, all figured out
And you don’t hate me somehow
‘Cause I hope you’re happy now
2. “Out in the Middle” by Zac Brown Band
Written by Luke combs, Zac brown, Jonathon Singleton, Ben Simonetti
Following the success of “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” Combs had another country hit on his hands when Zac Brown Band released “Out in the Middle” in 2022 as a single off their album, The Comeback. Combs co-wrote it with frontman Zac Brown, Singleton, and Ben Simonetti. The rock-meets-country track is on-brand for Combs, with lyrics like just some good old boys and good old girls/Hunting red dirt dreams in a concrete world.
“He’s got great sensibility for parts and then singing along—man, what a voice,” Brown raved about working with Combs to Today’s Country host Kelleigh Bannen. “Luke’s a great writer, and of course, he’s an amazing singer. I hope we do more together.” The song peaked at No. 12 on the Country Airplay chart. Combs is also a writer on The Comeback deep cut, “Old Love Song.”
Out in the middle where the hard work meets hard living
Out in the middle where we’re grown ’til we’re gone, God willing
Just some good old boys and good old girls
Hunting red dirt dreams in a concrete world
Getting by on just a little
Out in the middle
3. “Deserve” by Tom O’Connor
Written by Luke Combs, Tom O’Connor, Ray Fulcher
Not long after he broke through with mainstream success in country music, Combs was a co-writer and featured artist on indie singer-songwriter Tom O’Connor’s song “Deserve,” off his 2017 album, Bad For You.
[RELATED: The Top 11 Luke Combs Songs]
Co-written by Combs, O’Connor, and Ray Fulcher–Combs’ frequent songwriting collaborator— this country song finds a bitter man hoping that what goes around comes back around to the woman who broke his heart, as told through such searing lyrics as if he split/I hope that he ripped/Your heart out ’til there was nothin’/You can’t think, you can’t sleep. A Facebook video posted by O’Connor in 2017 shows he and Combs performing the song together live at a bar.
I hope that he did
And I hope that you get everything that you had comin’
And if he split, I hope that he ripped
Your heart out ’til there was nothin’
You can’t think, you can’t sleep
And he did you like you did me
I hope that it hurts
‘Cause that’s what you deserve
Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for SiriusXM
